Has Anyone Else Taught Them Selves How To Bass Fish?

[Locked]

I learned how to bass fish from this website. Wether it was from the articles that are here, or the awesome members we have. I've always felt confident in the information on here, which has turned into confidence on the water.

[Vance Jones]

i learned how to bass fish on my own. my dad left the family when i was still very young. my mom would take me to the lake/pond/river from time to time. always used to go crappie fishing. then in high school i was fortunate enough to have a few relatives who had some killer farm ponds. bass fishing farm ponds with top water baits is what got me started and i haven't stopped since.

i'm good with top water stuff minus the floating stick type baits and walking the dog. can never tell if the rod movement is right or not. learning more all of the time on what works and what doesn't.

[Jigfishn10]

My wife and I got married in 1995, one month after her sister and brother in law. We did a lot together with them on weekends and such. My sister in law got cancer in 1997 and passed away shortly afterwards. We decided we needed to take a vacation and went to Colorado. I wanted to learn to fly fish and hired a guide for a day. We were fishing dries and I caught my first trout.

When we got back I decided to try bass fishing. I picked up a Zell Rowland signature Pop-R, a cheap rod and reel combo and went and caught my first bass. The next day I decided to try it again, but the water was way too choppy, so back to WalMart and I picked up a jig, some grubs and a book; Advanced Bass Fishing by Dick Steinberg. That was an experience, I had no idea how to fish a jig, but I kept trying different things, reading different techniques out that book and caught a bass on a jig.

So self-taught with the help of a fly fishing guide and a book.

I've been bass fishing ever since.

[Fishmaster10]

Hardly anyone in my family goes fishing, except for the occasional charter boat trip (fishing for fluke in the Atlantic ocean) that my grandparents would take me on when I was really young. That being said I am mostly self taught except for one thing that my dad showed me. He doesn't fish with me often but he bought me a #3 mepps spinner when I first got into fishing, and I remember him showing me how to catch bass with it. That was the first artificial bait that I had ever caught a bass on, and the rest is history.

[Gangley]

I can't say that I taught myself because I have learned quite a bit from this and other websites, but I can say that I didnt have a mentor and most of what I have learned was from my desire to gather information on my own. I wish that wasn't the case though, learning by watching others is a much quicker avenue than reading and attempting wihout counsel.

[Captin Obvious]

My Dad loves to fish but he has all ways been a hook line and sinker fisherman.

I have taught myself everything I know about bass fishing, and I have passed it on to my Dad and my younger brothers.

My dad never used lures until I finally I got him going and my younger brother thinks he is the next Dean Rojas cause he only uses frogs.

Everything I've learned I ether researched and found out for myself or I asked here.

BassResource.com really made me the fisherman I am today.

Capt.O

[OHIO]

I grew up fishing quite a bit, but not with artificials. We always used crawlers or crickets.

I taught myself most of what I know about fishing artificials with help from you guys and friends.

When I would go fishing with my Dad we would fish for bluegill and I remember wanting to catch something bigger.

I caught a bluegill, casted it back out and reeled in my first bass, or the first one that I remember.

That's where it all began for me.

[RoLo]

My dad was an accomplished trout angler, caught monster carp on a fly-rod and also loved saltwater angling..

He passed in 1964, so he was never exposed to the fishing knowledge and equipment we have at our disposal today.

I'm eternally grateful that he introduced me to hunting and fishing, but with respect to bass fishing I'm totally self-taught .

Roger

[Fishes in trees]

Self taught isn't really fair, because since my early teens I've always asked lots of questions to lots of different people who I thought might know more about fishing than I did, and I learned quite a bit from those conversations. In the early 80's, I attended several of the old Bass Fishing Institute classes. These were fishing classes put together by the Murray brothers and held at various venues throughout the country. It was these classes, combined with In-Fisherman magazine that first gave me an organized approach to fishing.

My dad's idea of summertime relaxation was a combination of air conditioning and scotch, so it's safe to say I didn' receive any fishing knowledge or encouragement from him, or any other male role model in my extended family, for that matter.

[TerryR]

I'm kind of both self taught and learned from my dad. My dad used to bass fish a lot, and learned a lot about crankbaits and topwaters from him. But other lures, like spinnerbaits, soft plastics, and jigs, I am learning from here, people I ask questions to, and random experimentation.

[omthezone]

I didn't start bass fishing until I was 18 or 19 years old. I remember being out of high school and aching for a hobby that didn't involve athletics(which was my hs life). It started out with some cheap kmart specials and the fortune of working part time for the local parks department. I just happened to be stationed at a park with a 30 acre lake. The reel fell apart and the rod broke.....but not from maintenance, heavy use owned that setup. The next reel purchased is still used over ten years later. Made a few friends on the water and learned a lot from them.

[BrianSnat]

My dad's fisherman but he's always preferred saltwater. Dad taught me how to tie a clinch knot and how to cast while fishing for blowfish in the bay. When I was about 10 we purchased a cabin at a lake in northwestern NJ. I remember fishing with my dad and his friend and his friend was casting his lure toward the shore. I equated deep water with big fish and shallow water with small fish and asked him why he was fishing in shallow water. He told me the big fish come in to eat the small fish.

That was about the extent of my formal instruction. I started going out every morning at sunrise alone using the old Creme worm rigs with the propeller spinner and beads, and floating Rapalas. My first catch was a 26 inch long monster of a pickerel and that was it, I was hooked. I read books and magazines, watched what other fishermen were doing. There was an old guy who had a cabin near ours. He had an old wooden boat and he caught a lot of bass. He wasn't talkative so I really couldn't pick his brain, but I would fish near enough to him to see what lures he was using, where he was throwing them and how he was retreiving them. I learned a lot that way. I'd go out with dad once in a while, but I quickly knew more about bass fishing than he did.

I fished that lake almost exclusively for nearly 40 years. I know every rock, weed, underwater spring, dropoff, submerged island and could catch bass when nobody else could (well except for old Mr. Reynolds, my unwitting tutor).

It was a few years ago when I bought my boat and trailer and started fishing other lakes that I became humbled and then I discovered these forums. I've probably learned nearly as much here in the past year as I learned the previous 40 years.

[jignfule]

Read a lot, Watched a lot, asked a lot of questions, my Dad was an avid trout fisherman but never bass fished. Had to teach myself, with help

[fishingkidPA]

my dads a trout fisherman, tiny streams, cold water, catching native brookies. He got me into smallmouth fishing. The only lures he really used were jerkbaits and spinners. I taugt my self how to fish for LM

[kms399]

My grandpa got me into fishing, I would go the 5 hour drive up to his place in the north woods for about 2 weeks at a time and spent most of our time trolling for pike. we would go out and catch limits of fish and stock up his freezer for the summer. the rest of the summer I was on my own so I would catch pan fish. none of my friends ever bass fished so I was always on my own. I never could afford magazines and we never had cable so I really had no idea what I was doing. well one day I applied for a job at gander mountain fishing department thinking I was pretty good and boy was I wrong! I almost quit 20 times just cause I never knew the answer to any questions. I am glad I stuck it out cause it was like a crash course in fishing after 5 years of working there I still didn't know everything (doubt I ever will) but I could hold my own with most bass fisherman. still always looking to learn but again none of my friends bass fish all walleye and musky fisherman.

[piscicidal]

I can relate to your situation, kms. Growing up on the Mississippi River in Minnesota I fished Walleye ALOT and smallmouth/muskie a little. I almost never targeted largemouth...my buddies/family regarded LMB about one step higher than suckers/carp. Largemouth were not considered especially sporting...throw a spinnerbait in the weeds and catch em. How hard can that be?? (little did I know)

Anyway...I moved to South Florida about 12 years ago and started doing little bit of largemouth fishing, but mostly saltwater. It was only about 4 years ago that I really got into it. It started when I took a trip onto one of the more prominant LM lakes here in Florida (so I could brag to my northern buddies about the double digit bass I was surely going to get) I promptly got skunked! That's when I realized that maybe this bass fishing wasn't so easy. Since then, I've been borderline obsessive trying to improve all aspects of my bass fishing knowledge/equipment.

[joshholmes]

my dad only uses live or cut bait to fish so i self taught myslef here on BR for over 2 years. anything i knew about artificials came from getting lucky or guessing before that.

[NBR]

My Dad was a bird hunter not a fisherman when we moved to a small town. I must have been in ths fifth grade and that fishing stuff sounded good to me so I bought some lion, a few sinkers and hooks. I dug some worms and cut a willow stick on a small local stream bank and started fishing. By the next year Dad started to fish and through the years we had some great times together. While we fished bass most of the time we caught many varieties of pan fish, walleyes, pike, salmon, trout.

He's been gone for several years now but I remember fishing with him like it was just yesterday. I do miss hime a lot.

[Fishing Rhino]

My dad was never the fishing type, makes me sad bc i know we would have a lot of memories together if he did. Anyways with that being said and no real fisherman in my fam i took it upon my self to learn to fish as a kid. Asking questions and watching others as a grew up, reading mags etc! Now i look back and think wow...i taught my self how to become a good angler and didn't really have any help from pops or friends growing up like most do. I can remember catching my 1st bass on a culprit worm and thinking what an accomplishment it was at time " i was a kid" getting a bass to bite an artificial bait. Since then i became in love with bass fishing still to this day!!

I have tried to get my dad into fishing, even bought him a shimano reel for fathers day years ago growing up...only to find it in his shed still in the box. With me not having a mentor so to say to follow, i like teaching others who are in same boat as me and enjoy watching them catch fish off knowledge i gave them!

Jus curious if anyone had same story as me where you didn't really have someone show you the ropes or introduce you into fishing.

I'm curious. What hobbies or activities did your dad enjoy?

[stern]

My dad only fished saltwater, bass fishing or freshwater in general was only something to do while waiting for the right tides. So while my dad taught me alot about fishing for striped bass just about everyhing I know about freshwater bass fishing I learned through trial and error or in a magazine, tv, or online

[KU_Bassmaster.]

Me too. While I went fishing with my dad a lot as a young kid, he was just more of a fish for whatever bites type person. He also is very thick headed and uses pretty much the same baits in the same places every time out. I have always been more experimental. What caught me on bass fishing was my first topwater strike. I was hooked on bass and pretty much bass only and its pretty much been on my own.

[JDuncan]

I grew up in a fishing family. But they fished for what seems like everything but bass. Cat fishing in ponds and lakes wasn't my thing because it seemed like a lot of sitting and starring at water. Saltwater fishing was ok, but bass fishing seemed more technical. So when I turned 13 I got my first baitcaster and that started it all